Evaluation of Soil Seed Banks in Different Aged <em>Caragana microphylla</em> Plantation in Desert Steppe Ecosystems

Soil seed bank (SSB) represents potential plant communities, which is essential in the restoration of degraded ecosystems. Consequently, SSB is crucial in the reconstruction and recovery of aboveground plants because they largely determine the process and direction of vegetation restoration. SSB is also important indicators that can be used to evaluate the effects of management on degraded desert steppe. Here, field sampling and soil seed germination experiments were used to investigate the role of SSB in the recovery of degraded desert steppe. Results indicated that (1) the species composition of SSB and ground vegetation significantly differed in different aged Caragana microphylla plantation and control in the Yanchi County. (2) The abundance of SSB was significantly promoted by C. microphylla plantation. The average seed density in Caragana plantation SSB was 11248.75 m−2, which was 17 times than that of SSB in areas without C. microphylla plantation. (3) The ages of C. microphylla plantation were closely related to the composition and density of SSB

Quality assessment metric of stereo images considering cyclopean integration and visual saliency

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Information Sciences and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2016.09.004.In recent years, there has been great progress in the wider use of three-dimensional (3D) technologies. With increasing sources of 3D content, a useful tool is needed to evaluate the perceived quality of the 3D videos/images. This paper puts forward a framework to evaluate the quality of stereoscopic images contaminated by possible symmetric or asymmetric distortions. Human visual system (HVS) studies reveal that binocular combination models and visual saliency are the two key factors for the stereoscopic image quality assessment (SIQA) metric. Therefore inspired by such findings in HVS, this paper proposes a novel saliency map in SIQA metric for the cyclopean image called “cyclopean saliency”, which avoids complex calculations and produces good results in detecting saliency regions. Moreover, experimental results show that our metric significantly outperforms conventional 2D quality metrics and yields higher correlations with human subjective judgment than the state-of-art SIQA metrics. 3D saliency performance is also compared with “cyclopean saliency” in SIQA. It is noticed that the proposed metric is applicable to both symmetric and asymmetric distortions. It can thus be concluded that the proposed SIQA metric can provide an effective evaluation tool to assess stereoscopic image quality

Development of Certified Reference Materials for the Determination of Apparent Amylose Content in Rice

Apparent amylose content (AAC) is one of the most important parameters in rice quality evaluation. In this study, four rice reference materials used to test rice AAC were developed. The AAC of rice reference materials were measured by a spectrophotometric method with a defatting procedure, calibrated from potato amylose and waxy rice amylopectin at the absorption wavelengths of 620 and 720 nm. Homogeneity test (n = 20) was judged by F-test based on the mean squares of among and within bottles, and short- and long-term stability monitoring was performed by T-test to check if there was significant degradation at the delivery temperature of under 40 &deg;C (14 days) and at 0&ndash;4 &deg;C storage condition (18 months), respectively. After joint evaluation by ten laboratories, Dixion and Cochran statistical analyses were presented. The expanded uncertainties were calculated based on the uncertainty of homogeneity, short- and long-term stability, and inter-laboratory validation containing factor k = 2. It found that the four reference materials were homogenous and stable, and had the AAC (g/100 g, k = 2) of 2.96 &plusmn; 1.01, 10.68 &plusmn; 0.66, 17.18 &plusmn; 1.04, and 16.09 &plusmn; 1.29, respectively, at 620 nm, and 1.46 &plusmn; 0.49, 10.44 &plusmn; 0.56, 16.82 &plusmn; 0.75, and 24.33 &plusmn; 0.52, respectively, at 720 nm. It was indicated that 720 nm was more suitable for the determination of rice AAC with lower uncertainties. The determinations of the AAC of 11 rice varieties were carried out by two methods, the method without defatting and with calibration from the four rice reference materials and the method with a defatting procedure and calibrating from potato amylose and waxy rice amylopectin. It confirmed that the undefatted rice reference materials could achieve satisfactory results to test the rice samples with the AAC ranging from 1 to 25 g/100 g. It would greatly reduce the time cost and improve testing efficiency and applicability, and provide technical support for the high-quality development of the rice industry

Excessive Lipid Peroxidation in Uterine Epithelium Causes Implantation Failure and Pregnancy Loss

Abstract The uterine epithelium undergoes a dramatic spatiotemporal transformation to enter a receptive state, involving a complex interaction between ovarian hormones and signals from stromal and epithelial cells. Redox homeostasis is critical for cellular physiological steady state; emerging evidence reveals that excessive lipid peroxides derail redox homeostasis, causing various diseases. However, the role of redox homeostasis in early pregnancy remains largely unknown. It is found that uterine deletion of Glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), a key factor in repairing oxidative damage to lipids, confers defective implantation, leading to infertility. To further pinpoint Gpx4’s role in different cell types, uterine epithelial‐specific Gpx4 is deleted by a lactotransferrin (Ltf)‐Cre driver; the resultant females are infertile, suggesting increased lipid peroxidation levels in uterine epithelium compromises receptivity and implantation. Lipid peroxidation inhibitor administration failed to rescue implantation due to carbonylation of major receptive‐related proteins underlying high lipid reactive oxygen species. Intriguingly, superimposition of Acyl‐CoA synthetase long‐chain family member 4 (ACSL4), an enzyme that promotes biosynthesis of phospholipid hydroperoxides, along with uterine epithelial GPX4 deletion, preserves reproductive capacity. This study reveals the pernicious impact of unbalanced redox signaling on embryo implantation and suggests the obliteration of lipid peroxides as a possible therapeutic approach to prevent implantation defects

Analysis of Genotype × Environment Interactions for Polyphenols and Antioxidant Capacity of Rice by Association Mapping

Uncovering the genetic basis of polyphenol content and antioxidant activity traits in rice accessions is important to improve the nutritional quality of whole grain rice and to ameliorate the increasing nutrition problem of the rice-eating population. In this study, 20 diverse rice accessions were planted in Hainan province, China, for 2 years to investigate the effects of genotype, environment, and their interactions on total phenolic (TPC), flavonoid (TFC), proanthocyanidins content (TPAC), ABTS, and DPPH radical scavenging activity by association mapping. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) showed that TPC, TFC, TPAC, ABTS, and DPPH were mainly affected by genetic variance, accounting for >94% of the total variance. The interaction between genotype × environment (G × E) was also highly significant (<i>P</i> < 0.001). Red-pericarp rice accumulates proanthocyanidins, which had significantly higher TPC, TFC, ABTS, and DPPH than white-pericarp rice. The correlation coefficient among these parameters were highly significant (<i>r</i> > 0.96; <i>P</i> < 0.001). Twenty-three putative unique loci were identified by association mapping. Five loci were close to previously identified genes or quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Among them, qPAC7-3 identified for TPAC in 2011 was near to the brown pericarp and seed coat (<i>Rc</i>) gene, and the locus at the qPC4/qFC4/qPAC4/qACA4/qACD4 cluster on chromosome 4 detected in two environments was near to a transcriptional activator A (<i>Ra</i>) gene. Some loci were identified in only one environment, indicating that these QTLs were sensitive to environment. This study provides a primary SNP-resource for further identification of genes responsible for polyhenol contents and antioxidant activity in rice whole grains

PECAM-1 drives β-catenin-mediated EndMT via internalization in colon cancer with diabetes mellitus

Abstract Background Diabetes mellitus (DM) is considered to be a risk factor in carcinogenesis and progression, although the biological mechanisms are not well understood. Here we demonstrate that platelet-endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM-1) internalization drives β-catenin-mediated endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) to link DM to cancer. Methods The tumor microenvironment (TME) was investigated for differences between colon cancer with and without DM by mRNA-microarray analysis. The effect of DM on colon cancer was determined in clinical patients and animal models. Furthermore, EndMT, PECAM-1 and Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling were analyzed under high glucose (HG) and human colon cancer cell (HCCC) supernatant (SN) or coculture conditions by western and immunofluorescence tests. Results DM promoted the progression and EndMT occurrence of colon cancer (CC). Regarding the mechanism, DM induced PECAM-1 defection from the cytomembrane, internalization and subsequent accumulation around the cell nucleus in endothelial cells, which promoted β-catenin entry into the nucleus, leading to EndMT occurrence in CC with DM. Additionally, Akt/GSK-3β signaling was enhanced to inhibit the degradation of β-catenin, which regulates the process of EndMT. Conclusions PECAM-1 defects and/or internalization are key events for β-catenin-mediated EndMT, which is significantly boosted by enhanced Akt/GSK-3β signaling in the DM-associated TME. This contributes to the mechanism by which DM promotes the carcinogenesis and progression of CC. Graphical Abstract Video Abstrac

Efficiency of Launching Highly Confined Polaritons by Infrared Light Incident on a Hyperbolic Material

We investigated phonon-polaritons in hexagonal boron nitride - a naturally hyperbolic van der Waals material - by means of the scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy. Real-space nanoimages we have obtained detail how the polaritons are launched when the light incident on a thin hexagonal boron nitride slab is scattered by various intrinsic and extrinsic inhomogeneities, including sample edges, metallic nanodisks deposited on its top surface, random defects, and surface impurities. The scanned tip of the near-field microscope is itself a polariton launcher whose efficiency proves to be superior to all the other types of polariton launchers we studied. Our work may inform future development of polaritonic nanodevices as well as fundamental studies of collective modes in van der Waals materials.ONR (grant N00014-15-1-2671)AFOSR (grant FA9550-15-1-0478)AFOSR (grant FA9550-11-1-0225